Romney Blames Consultants For Thompson Parody Site

A spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson today blasted GOP rival Mitt Romney for a "half-baked cover-up attempt" in the case of an anti-Thompson website.

In a statement, Todd Harris called for an immediate apology from Romney and again demanded that the Romney campaign terminate anyone involved in the website's creation.

"This latest episode only serves to prove what many voters are already figuring out: Mitt Romney will do anything, say anything, smear any opponent and flip flop on any position in order to win," Harris said. "The American people in general and the Republican Party in particular deserve better than this."

Romney officials today blamed the web site on an employee of one the former Massachusetts governor's top consultants in South Carolina.

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said the employee, Wesley Donehue, created the website phoneyfred.org without the approval of the campaign. Madden said the campaign ordered the site removed when they received calls from the media about it.

"The site has no direct affiliation to our campaign and we had no knowledge of its development," Madden said. "We discovered it was created by an individual who apparently parked the site temporarily on the company server space of a firm whose financial partner is a consultant to the campaign."

Madden's comments came as Thompson's advisers have demanded an apology for the attack website, which described Thompson in unflattering ways and appeared to be filled with opposition research about the former senator.

"If this is true, Governor Romney should exercise some of his much-touted executive acumen and immediately terminate anyone related to this outrage," Thompson spokesman Todd Harris said late Monday evening.

Madden insisted that Donehue is "not an employee of the Romney campaign," and his name does not appear in the financial disclosures that presidential candidates are required to make with the Federal Election Commission.

But Donehue is clearly an employee of several firms which have been paid tens of thousands of dollars by Romney.

The firm Tompkins, Thompson, Sullivan has received $37,596 from Romney's campaign, most of it for "Political strategy consulting." The web site for that firm has been taken down, but a recent page cached by Google lists him as an "associate consultant and vice president" of the firm.

"As the first associate consultant and vice president of TTS, Wesley Donehue runs the daily operations of the firm. Despite being only 27 years old, he is one of the most experienced operatives in the state," the site says.

The firm is run by Warren Tompkins -- Romney's senior adviser in South Carolina -- and Terry Sullivan, who is on Romney's payroll as the South Carolina state director.

The company Under the Power Lines, which describes itself as an internet consulting firm, lists Donehue as a "Partner/Consultant." The phoneyfred.org website was hosted on the same server as the Under the Power Lines website.

Donehue is also listed as an "Associate" in a direct mail firm called On the Mark Direct, which has been paid $146,018 by Romney's campaign for printing.

A Romney ally points out that just working for a firm like Tompkins doesn't necessarily mean that person is working for Romney. Heath Thompson, another partner in the firm, is reportedly a Giuliani guy.

Asked whether Donehue should be fired, Madden said that it is not up to Romney to decide that. "He has no role with the Romney campaign," Madden said. He said the campaign will not sever ties with Tompkins or Sullivan because they have told Romney officials that they knew nothing about the development of the website.

Some South Carolina consultants are skeptical of that claim.

"The notion that Romney and them are going to throw one [person] under the bus is just nuts," said one longtime GOP operative in South Carolina. "it just didn't happen that way."

The companies Donehue works for are part of a large political operation founded by Tompkins, a longtime adviser to the late former governor, Carroll Campbell, who is known for his bare-knuckles approach to politics.

Tompkins ran the South Carolina campaign operation for George W. Bush in 2000 and led a concerted effort to defeat Bush's chief rival that year, John McCain. Romney has paid him $12,000 a month for political advice.

In an e-mail, Tompkins said he did not know anything about the phoneyfred.org site.

"I did not know about a web site and quite frankly am very internet dysfunctional," he wrote. "Anyone who knows me would laugh at the prospect of my even being involved in such an undertaking."

Dept. of Justice does Cover-up of $300 million in Fraud connected to Mitt Romney.

The public entity eToys.com filed for bankruptcy in 2001. At which time the court approved the law firms of Traub Bonacquist (TBF) and Morris Nichols (MNAT) to be the Creditors and Debtor's counsel. The law mandates that both firms have no connection with eToys or with each other. The rules of conflict of interest are designed to assure the public and the creditors get a fair deal, especially when public stock companies are involved. They are to keep their hands out of the cookie jar.
The policing agent assigned to be the watchdog for the public is the Dept of Justice US Trustee's office. The US Trustee program was formed around 1987 to separate such duties from the Judges who were handling bankruptcy cases. Congress felt such separations were necessary in order to halt any corruption with the millions, which has since become billions of dollar, in complex legal decisions and fee's that Judges permit law firms and professionals to earn each year.
There are more than 100 statutory violations that have occurred in eToys. Including perjury, scheme to fix fees, intimidation of victim/witness, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and RICO violations tp name a few. The $300 million in fraud has not been prosecuted by the DOJ, even though confessions to perjury have occurred.
So that the reader may understand the serious consideration of the issues below I, Steven Haas (a/k/a Laser Haas) testify that the foregoing is true and correct. These statements are made under the "Penalty of perjury" this 14th day of October 2007.
Collateral Logistics' Inc (CLI), a company owned by Laser Haas, was hired as the Court approved liquidation consultant as eToys had announced that they were going to auction off everything for $5 million. The bankruptcy assets were eventually sold to Bain/KB for discounts in the tens of millions. At that time Bain was owned and/or controlled by the Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
The sales efforts of Laser managed to get back more than $45 million into the eToys bank accounts. Yet for some inexplicable reason the new CEO of eToys, Barry Gold and the law firms TBF & MNAT kept finding fault with Laser's accomplishments. When Laser discovered the possibility that Barry Gold and TBF might be connected he was offered a very clever bribe of $800,000.
Upon turning down that gratuitous offer a campaign to destroy Haas began which forced Laser to hire a new attorney for CLI, one Henry Heiman who was formerly a Trustee in Delaware. TBF, MNAT and Barry Gold had submitted some documents to the Court stating that Haas generously waived all earnings. CLI was entitled to more than $3 million in fees and expenses. Heiman stated that he would correct the matter, that the contracts the court approved were undeniable and that CLI would be paid in 30 days. Haas told Heiman and the US Trustee office how the parties had tried to invite Haas to become one of the "good ole boys". Both stated there was no real law broken and that no court violation had occurred by denying the legalities of conflict of interest issues.
Two years later Laser began to sense that Heiman did not have the best interest of CLI as a first priority and so Laser started to research the Code and Rules of the bankruptcy system that anyone can find on the Dept of Justice website. Where one learns that the Courts can only approve attorneys for work in a bankruptcy matters once the attorneys submit an Affidavit, under Bankruptcy Rule 2014, stating that there is no connection or conflict of interest. They must not touch the cookies in the cookie jar.
Immediately Laser had discovered that his attorney Heiman and the US Attorney for the Region 3 Trustee of Delaware, Mark Kenney, had stated falsely to Haas that the bribe was not an issue unless accepted. Many false affidavit's, which is Perjury, had been submitted by the attorneys who had been paid more than $14 million in fees and expenses. Attorneys must re-certify there are no conflicts whenever the seek payments.
Upon many additional discoveries Laser again contacted the Attorney for the Dept of Justice, Mark Kenney and informed him of the issues at hand. This resulted in heated phone conversations whereby Heiman emailed Laser a threat by Susan Balaschak of TBF, that if Haas did not "back off" not only would CLI not get paid for the work the Court had approved, Laser's career would suffer greatly and TBF would seek additional retaliations to come after Haas for monies earned prior to that time.
When Laser called the Dept of Justice about such, Mark Kenney also addressed Haas in an angry manner and stated that the conflict of interest issues of Barry Gold and TBF had been handled in Bonus Sales. There it was, out of anger, a slip of the tongue, Mark Kenney accidentally provided Haas with the place to find the proofs that the US Trustee Dept had known all along. It is clear that undisclosed conflicts of interest between TBF and Barry Gold existed and had already been addressed by the Courts twice before. Knowing the fact that issues hidden tends to corrupt, Congress has mandated that all court cases now be available to the public by Internet access. A system called PACER.
Research on PACER of the bankruptcy case of Bonus Sales (Del Bankr 03-12284) led to the discovery of a company TBF owner, Paul Traub and Barry Gold owned together. That being the entity of Asset Disposition Advisors. (ADA) It is really simple, the old adage of the lie told yesterday is forgotten when one tells a lie today.
Haas attorney Heiman refused to supply the Court with this damming information and Heiman immediately asked the Court to withdraw as CLI counsel. Upon Laser's supplying of the proof to the Court, the eToys shareholders reached out to Laser. The comparing of notes led to discovery of many additional hidden secrets. Both the shareholders and Haas made Emergency motions to ask the Court to deal with the issue of the false affidavits that were to be heard on December 22, 2004.
The Director, Lawrence Friedman, of the US Trustee's in Washington D C replaced Roberta DeAngelis by a press release on Dec. 22, 2004. At the Emergency hearing on Dec. 22, 2004 the Judge Ordered TBF, MNAT and Barry Gold to address the non=disclosure of conflict of interest issues with responses by Jan. 25, 2005. The Asst US Trustee, Frank Perch armed with the many confessions of multiple, intentionally false affidavits, then Motioned to Disgorge TBF $1.6 million on Feb. 15, 2005.
Just when Laser and the eToys shareholder key researcher (Robert Alber) felt that justice would occur, out of the blue, less than 10 days later Mark Kenney enters a Stipulation to Settle that reduces the penalty of the returned monies of $1.6 million to only $750,000. At the same time Mark Kenney included language within the settlement that implied a get out of jail free card to everyone while also permitting improper circumvention of the Law. It illegally states that the parties would not be compelled to tell any of their other unlawful activities. Mark Kenney charged by Oath with protecting the public's interest had turned turncoat and seeks to protect the perpetrators of fraud on the court with a slap on the wrist fine. This is simply absurd!
Not only has TBF & MNAT confessed to several acts of false affidavits, Paul Traub of TBF also confessed directly to the court that he paid Barry Gold four payments of $30,000 each that halted when TBF & MNAT placed Barry Gold secretly within the Debtor. At which time a hidden Hiring Letter shows that Barry Gold was given illegal permission to circumvent the Court and the Law, by his own choice. Once he agreed to violate the law, he was then paid $40,000 per month and a bonus at the end. To earn this money all Barry Gold had to do was work 4 days per month for the Debtor.
Laser and Alber immediately complained to the Court, to Frank Perch and the Director of the Dept of Justice EOUST office, Lawrence Friedman. Mr. Friedman emailed Haas his staff was on top of it and that the matters would be addressed properly.
At the same time Haas and Alber began researching for the reasons why the US Attorney Mark Kenney would stick his neck out, so flagrantly against the Law. To everyone's surprise the additional non-disclosures the Stipulation tried to cover up was the fact that MNAT, TBF and Barry Gold all had non-disclosed connections to Bain/KB. TBF and Barry Gold had worked for a Bain, SanKaty, as Mitt Romney owned an entity called Stage Stores, which was also a bankruptcy matter in another state, Texas.
MNAT, it turns out, also represents Bain interests on a regular basis. MNAT had handled a Mitt Romney/Bain connected entity, the Learning Company, when it merged with Mattel. Both the Bain and Mattel issues mandate immediate removal of MNAT and referral to the United States Attorney's office for prosecution.
Yet the Disgorge motion and Stipulation to Settle does not even mention MNAT. There are also multiple $100 million dollar preferential issues in both eToys and KB Toys bankruptcy that have never been reviewed. MNAT brazenly represents Bain in the KB Toys bankruptcy case.This is also a crime as has been established in the matter of In re Bucyrus. In that case Milbank was disgorged their entire fee's paid, the Law firm lost a $20 million lawsuit and Gellene was sent to jail for his perjury in trying to hide such from the Court by false affidavits. A book on the Gellene matter is available on Amazon, entitled Eat what you kill -The fall of a Wall Street Lawyer.
To demonstrate how little the $750,000 meant to TBF as a deterrent, Paul Traub then petitioned the Court to handle the $100 million dollar preferential of Michael Glazer and Bain in the KB Toys bankruptcy case. TBF and Barry Gold did not inform the KB Judge of their connections to Bain and Glazer. Whereupon Haas and Alber immediately cried foul to Asst US Trustee Frank Perch, to the Court and to Lawrence Friedman.
Mark Kenney responded to the proofs provided by Laser by Obstructing justice stepping in as the defense for TBF and asked the courts to strike and expunge the proofs provided by Laser and Alber. The Court signed an Order dismissing Laser's comments and then held a hearing about the issue. As if such treasonous defenses and improper procedures were not enough Laser discovers that Mr. Perch and Lawrence Friedman both put in their resignations, from their positions of esteemed office, for "personal reasons".
As Mark Kenney was successful in assisting in the defense of TBF, MNAT and Barry Gold the court also assisted the threats of TBF against Haas by allowing the CLI claims hearing to be rescheduled. Haas lawyers now have a slam dunk case against the fraud and admitted acts of perjury, strangely, Laser's new counsel, Brad Brook, asked to withdraw, stating that Haas had disappeared and could not be reached. Brook could not offer or state it was a monetary issue as his firm believed in Laser's case so much they took it upon contingency.
The Court permitted the rescheduling, the withdrawal of Laser's attorney and then summarily dismissed the CLI claims case. The Court ignoring the issues of due process and Constitutional rights, even went so far as to refuse Laser's new counsel from speaking to the Court the very day the Court dismissed the $3 million claim for the Court approved contracts of CLI.
Both Haas and Alber complained to the FBI, the US Marshall's, the OIG, the OGE and the OPR offices of the US Government. All of which referred Haas and Alber to the US Attorney's office in Delaware and the US Dept of Justice office of General Counsel of the EOUST in Washington D.C..
The sham of this referral is the fact that the after the resignation of Lawrence Friedman, the party that was replaced as Region 3 Trustee, Roberta DeAngelis was promoted by the Dept of Justice to be the Acting General Counsel for the US Trustee's. DeAngelis is now in charge of investigating her own cases that she was removed from.
Making matters even worse the US Trustee's office has been acting as appellee in the appeals of Haas and Alber defending TBF, MNAT and Barry Gold by asking the Courts to strike, expunge and dismiss the Haas and Alber appeals for being "without merit". Roberta DeAngelis has actually signed a brief asking the 3rd Circuit to dismiss.
Heading off the first appeal of Laser, the bankruptcy court issued a 57 page Opinion that testifies on behalf of the perpetrators and states clearly erroneous findings of fact and conclusions of law to justify the position. It is as if the Delaware bankruptcy court has become a twilight zone and sanctuary for white-collar, syndicated crime!
Anyone can plainly see that the entire system is geared behind defending TBF, MNAT and Barry Gold the one question that has remained unanswered is Why? Who can it be that the entire system is protecting? At the same time the question comes to mind as to how high does the manipulation of the system go? Is the White House aware of all the perversions of the Justice system and if so, why has no one sought to correct the problem?
Everywhere that Haas and Alber look they find inexplicable questions of connections and cronyism that remain unanswered, even though the acts of impropriety are clearly evident. Just months ago it was discovered that the Judge who had heard all 4 Delaware District Court appeals in the eToys case, Judge Kent A Jordan, was a partner in the firm of Morris James. As per the law Â§ 455 Kent Jordan should have recused himself from the case for his firm Morris James was the firm that Haas had fired when he had hired Henry Heiman to pursue the claim of CLI in eToys.
Yet the resignation of esteemed parties does not cease, as Debra Yang of President Bush's Corp Fraud Task Force also resigned without providing any remedy. A feat that is only made pale by the fact that it is now discovered that the US Attorney for Delaware Colm F Connolly was a partner of the law firm of MNAT. Colm F Connolly is now to the Judge in Delaware District Ct position made vacant by Kent A Jordan.
It appears it certainly is a good career move to refuse to investigate or prosecute one's former partner, associates and clients. Especially when the Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney owns one of the clients and has benefited from the malfeasance. However, it now has to be a grave cause of concern for Mr. Connolly, as such actions are unethical, illegal and good reason for failing to be promoted to the Federal Judge position. Mr. Connolly now realizes he is caught, red-handed, with both hands in the cookie jar.

The web is brimming with attack sites aimed at Romney, most of them far, far nastier than this one. And Romney hasn't said a thing about them. Fred Thompson has some very thin skin. I honestly don't know how he's going to survive the Clinton attack machine if he can't handle this

Wow - Mr. Harris goes from 0 to nuclear in like one sentence, although he sustains it well throughout the attack. This should give Romney, and the rest, a primer on just how far into the muck these Tennessee pig farmers are willing to shovel.
You go fred, the people you hired show just how deeply your character runs....

I am disappointed that the Republican candidates have no policy positions like the Democrat candidates are developing and stand on. Without positions, candidates end of maligning each other. I'm sick of this approach. And if the Governor didn't know about this kind of behavior, then his management skills are not what they have been touted to be. I've had enough of this garbage production already.

It's a little known fact that Warren Tompkins was Lee Atwater's protege for many years. He learned his dirty tricks at the feet of the master. Almost the same thing happened to McCain in the last South Carolina primary. Tompkins was also Bush's "consultant" in those character bashes.
I don't think there's anything Tompkins won't try. It just seems he finally got caught, something that never happened to Atwater in a presidential race.
By the way, Rove was also a student in the Atwater school of political dirty tricks.
I actually consider myself to be a Democrat, so I really shouldn't care about either canidate, but I think this is another smear job that just shouldn't happen, and I think that the responsible parties should be made to answer for their actions.

This type of thing is the reason that many intelligent, hard-working Americans are dismayed by how our country is being run--by both parties and by the media. There is so much blame to go around and the average person would probably be far better off just ignoring this type of "breaking news" and focusing on the real issues out there in the real world--health insurance, security, the environment, education. We shouldn't trust any *one* person to do the job; instead we should all individually be doing something each day to make the world better. That said, it is good to see that candidates (at least on the surface) generally don't do this kind of thing...

"The American people in general and the Republican Party in particular deserve better than this." Actually, after 25 years of supporting the sliming of opponents, of the nastiest of campaign tricks, THIS is exactly what one has come to expect from the Republicans. No lie, no smear, no innuendo is beneath the Party that Karl Rove built. Remember what they did to McCain, to Kerry, to Plame?? Want more?? Support you Republican Party.

Welcome to the party "Law & Order" idiot! If you can't stand the heat...."Get out of the kitchen!"

Politics Republican Style is completely ATTACK BASED you actor man fool. Not like they/you could stand on the last 36+ years as being the nicey times in American political history!

08' is going to be a banner political year as both parties are just a bunch of cannibalistic idiots and will eat each other through the primaries, then appear to play nice through the general
(s)election.

And 30% the American Public eats it up as usual...Though they are waking up based on recent polling. It's a start! Yeah for the 16%'ers!

WAKE UP AMERICA!

This crop of Front Running Phoney Faith & Non-Faith Based Republicans...A Mormon (Former Gov. of a Liberal State), An Actor (Former Sen. and Nixon Yes Man), And an Idiot (Former Mayor and mafioso family member). Is this really the best crop the neocons have to offer?

If so, looks like the 73 Million $$$$$ most investigated woman in the world just might be a lock. Unlike this crop of Rethugs...She came out of that wash clean.

Let's get real: In a world of unregulated cyberspace free speech, anybody can post anything without authorization, YouTube being the most obvious example. A candidate who would knowingly put this purported stuff out, especially of Romney's intellect, would surely know that the evidence trail would lead to his door. Accusing another of lying is an excuse to abuse them, not a deserved hit.

"Mitter Of The Multitudes", "Religious Romney", "The Dirty Lil' Mitt", & "This Ain't Your Father's Mitt Romney", among others will all be going live soon & using BlueHost to host them too, all for just $7.00 a pc.

When one is the first mud slinger...Expect to get mighty dirty.

Mitt has more baggage than a travelling Mormon has a right to carry (unless it's from celestial/spiritual wives #'s 2-60) LMAO!

Idiot Repugs....Gotta love um.

Posted by: cglrcng | September 11, 2007 04:18 PM

I don't get it. And what the hell is a repug? Looks like someone needs to stay away from the Twinkies and get the fat fingers in shape.

"Mitter Of The Multitudes", "Religious Romney", "The Dirty Lil' Mitt", & "This Ain't Your Father's Mitt Romney", among others will all be going live soon & using BlueHost to host them too, all for just $7.00 a pc.

When one is the first mud slinger...Expect to get mighty dirty.

Mitt has more baggage than a travelling Mormon has a right to carry (unless it's from celestial/spiritual wives #'s 2-60) LMAO!

Romney, by past comments attempting to excuse continuing faux pas by his campaign, again strives to tell us once more that " I did not do that." The man lies and lies and lies. How can any thinking person support him for president?